All Sweetness, No Stress: A Cookie Solution

By MARIAN BURROS

Published: December 8, 1999

THE urge to bake vast quantities of cookies in as short a time as possible feels like a thoroughly modern phenomenon at the holidays. But the tradition dates from way before the home stove, let alone the microwave, to a time when stress had a whole other meaning.

A new book by Albert Sonnenfeld tells of how journeymen bakers in the Middle Ages were required to bake at least 1,000 orange- and lemon-flavor wafers a day. They probably risked toppling into the fire in exhaustion. In ''Food, a Culinary History From Antiquity to the Present'' (Columbia University Press), Mr. Sonnenfeld writes that in 1397 and 1406, King Charles VI of France issued guild rules to protect bakers. The trade, the king noted, was ''very dangerous and difficult to learn.''

Today, cookies are perceived as the easiest things to bake, but there is still the seasonal time crunch. It's hard to find hours to invest in making, chilling and rolling out sugar cookies and gingerbread men, which must then be lavishly decorated. But there is still something satisfying about setting out a tray of homemade cookies in a variety of shapes and flavors with the eggnog, or in a tin as a gift.

One way to have your cookies and time for shopping, too, is to rethink the Christmas cookie. Forget pinwheels and delicate lace cookies and even hand-formed Mexican wedding cakes and bourbon balls: anything that requires cookie-by-cookie attention. The alternative, of course, is cookies baked in a sheet pan or jellyroll pan.

The trick is finding cookies that have the festive sophisticated look and flavor that say holidays. As for the beauty of the individually shaped and decorated cookie, it can be faked: cut the dough into any shape, even with cookie cutters (you can eat the trimmings). The four streamlined recipes presented here produce cookies that meet the holiday test. Their range of flavors and textures would make a fine cookie tray or gift box.

You can turn out at least 17 dozen cookies in a morning or afternoon of concentrated baking. Or you can spread the baking out over the weeks before Christmas: all the cookies hold up well in airtight containers.

What these cookies have in common are easy preparation and relatively few ingredients, though all the ingredients are of high quality. The meringues, essentially enlightened drop cookies, take only sugar, egg whites and peanuts. Super-rich brownies to compete with Valrhona chocolates are flavored with orange liqueur and coffee.

Apricot bars, a cakelike crust simply spread with top-grade apricot jam and sprinkled with pistachios, are glistening and festive and can be cut into squares, rectangles or diamonds. And nut diamonds start with a fail-proof dough and end up as brittle and sweet as toffee.

The peanut meringues can be stored for a week in an airtight tin at room temperature. The nut diamonds will last even longer in a tin. The brownies and apricot dreams can be refrigerated for a day or two or frozen for a couple of weeks.

I made all of these in one whirlwind of baking. Not one batch took me more than 20 minutes to put together, and as one set of cookies was in the oven, I was already working on the next recipe.

As simple as cookies are, there are a few tricks to getting them perfect.

Check each batch two minutes before the minimum baking time suggested. If some cookies are done before others, remove them.

Remove all cookies as soon as they are firm enough to handle, or they will continue to bake on the pan.

Don't stack them; lay them out on racks or plates so that they don't touch one another.

Cake squares should cool in the pan for 10 to 15 minutes before cutting and removing.

Very delicate cookies should be stored with sheets of wax paper between them.

Cookies to be frozen should be wrapped twice, first in aluminum foil and then in heavy plastic.

Don't overbake brownies.

And bake nothing that will result in falling into the oven in exhaustion.

ORANGE MOCHA BROWNIES

Time: 35 to 40 minutes

1/2 pound unsalted butter

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate

4 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate

2 cups sugar

5 eggs

1 1/2 cups unbleached flour

2 tablespoons Grand Marnier

1 tablespoon coffee extract

1 tablespoon grated orange zest

Dash salt

1 1/2 cups chopped pecans (optional).

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Melt butter and chocolate over hot water or in a microwave. Set aside.

3. Cream sugar and eggs thoroughly, then stir in cooled chocolate mixture. Thoroughly stir in flour, Grand Marnier, coffee extract, orange zest, salt and pecans (optional). Spoon batter into a greased and floured 9-by-13-inch baking pan, and bake 20 to 25 minutes. Brownies should be moist when a cake tester is inserted in the center. Let cool, and refrigerate for as long as three days or freeze for a couple of weeks.

4. To serve, defrost if frozen or return refrigerated brownies to room temperature. Cut into squares or rectangles.

Yield: 24 to 30 large brownies; 48 to 60 small brownies.

PEANUT MERINGUE COOKIES

Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes

1 egg white

1/2 cup sugar

3/4 cup whole salted peanuts.

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Line a baking sheet with brown or wax paper.

2. Beat egg white until stiff. Slowly beat in sugar to make a meringue. Fold in peanuts.

3. Drop meringues by the teaspoonful onto the paper-lined baking sheet. Bake 45 minutes. Turn the oven off, and leave cookies in it for 15 minutes more. Cool before serving. Cookies can be stored between layers of wax paper in a tightly sealed tin at room temperature for as long as a week.

Yield: 2 to 2 1/2 dozen cookies

APRICOT DREAMS

Time: 40 minutes

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

Salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

2 eggs

1 tablespoon milk

2 tablespoons melted butter

12 ounces apricot jam

1/2 cup chopped nuts (unsalted walnuts, pecans, cashews, pistachios)

1/4 cup sugar.

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Mix together flour, baking powder and 1/8 teaspoon salt. Beat in softened butter, a stirred egg and milk, and beat until mixture is thoroughly blended.

3. Evenly pat out dough in a jellyroll pan, 10 inches by 15 inches. Spread the jam over the dough.

4. Beat the remaining egg, and mix with melted butter, nuts and sugar. Brush this mixture over the jam.

5. Bake 25 minutes in the middle of the oven. Cool slightly, and cut into diamonds or squares. Refrigerate for as long as three days, or freeze for a couple of weeks. If frozen, allow to sit at room temperature about an hour before serving.

2. Cream together butter and sugar. Blend in vanilla and egg yolk. Combine flour, salt, cinnamon and 1/4 cup nuts, and stir into sugar mixture. Press dough evenly into pan; it should be very thin. Brush top with beaten egg. Sprinkle remaining nuts evenly, and press in lightly. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until edges start to brown.

3. Remove from oven, run knife around edges of pan and cut into diamonds or triangles while it is hot. Cool on racks.

Yield: 5 dozen.

Photos: (Tony Cenicola for The New York Times) (pg. F1); NOT A SPRINKLE IN SIGHT: Holiday cookie-baking does not have to be time-consuming. From top: apricot dreams, orange mocha brownies, nut diamonds and peanut meringues can all be made in quantity in sheet pans or jellyroll pans. (Photographs by Tony Cenicola for The New York Times) (pg. F11)